A Lot of Black Cars, a Lot of Guys with Guns

A little after lunch, Mike called me on my work phone. He’s downstairs, in front of the building, standing next to a row of black cars… and a bunch of CIA-looking guys.

So I grab my camera, and head down.

On stepping out the door, this is what I see: lots of big guys in suits, with earpieces alongside maybe 4-5 black cars (with police cars at the front and rear).

A shot near the front of the convoy. At this point, there were a handful of people hanging around. There is a mosque, somewhat hidden away, next to our building, and whoever these guys were protecting… he/she was in there.

I asked one of the guys nearby: “Do you mind if I ask what you’re doing, why you’re here?”

The rumors going around the gathering crowd was that it was Barak Obama.

His reply was: “We’re escorting an international friend.”

View of the lead car.

At one point, this guy yells at me: “Don’t take my picture!” In hindsight, it was a request… but the manner in which he said it to me, it sounded like a command.

I bristled a bit. Technically, I was on the sidewalk, public property, and fully within my rights to take a photo. If I were inside a building perhaps, or on private property… that would have been another matter. But on the sidewalk? I didn’t think there was any law I was breaking.

What if, I asked the guy, I kept him out of the frame. Could I still keep taking pictures?

He said “I don’t want to be on film.”

Again, inside… I felt like arguing. But truth be told, I was a little nervous. I probably should have tried to clarify more what the deal was, but somehow knowing the guy was armed… I didn’t feel like pushing things.

Way back in high school, I was friends with two guys named Nick Segel and Ben Prince. The three of us would hang out a Waffle House and bullshit around over coffee for hours. For fun, we’d make up lists.

One list that I still recall is a top ten list of the absolute worst things to say to a police officer, on being pulled over. Number one on that list was “Fuck you pig, I know my rights.”

I stopped taking photos of the guy who asked me not to photograph him, but I kept my camera out. I continued shooting, but just made sure not to get him in the frame.

Again, looking back on it… I believe he was asking me to not take his picture. I was, technically, able to either comply with his request or ignore it. There was no mention of legality, or my breaking any laws. But the sheer fact that he was dressed like some sort of CIA official made his “request” sound very much like a command.

A big part of me wanted to clarify and argue, but for better or worse I held my tongue. I was pretty nervous.

The crowd has grown to the point where people trying to get up the stairs from the Red Line are having difficulties.

Another crowd shot. One guy walking by asked out loud if it was R. Kelly inside.

One guy, guarding the door of the car. They weren’t CIA, but I forget exactly what they said – State Department? I dunno.

At this point, the same guy who first asked me not to photograph me came by again. He asked if I was doing anything particular with my camera, and I said something like “just taking some video.” He seemed a bit more ok with the video, as opposed to photographs.

He said “I don’t want you photographing the vehicles, or my men. I consider this me asking you politely.”

Yeesh. Again, nothing about legal or illegal, but that sounded a bit ominous to me… as though there was going to be some impolite asking if I didn’t listen.

Even now, I’m not sure who the guy was. I’m fairly certain the guy who was being protected is on the far left, to the right of the guy with the red tie. Everyone else in the video seemed to have an earpiece, and seemed to be agents.

Earlier, one of the agents said “It’s not who you think. You’ll all be shaking your heads, when this is over. You should just go now.”

And yeah, that pretty much happened. Near the end, I didn’t think Obama was really inside, but rather some foreign dignitary. When I asked the agent “Does this happen often?” he just smiled and nodded.

As the caravan took off, I saw one of the scariest things I’ve seen in a long while. I was so scared, in fact, that I wasn’t able to lift my camera up to take a photo.

In one of the trailing cars, there was a guy (also in a suit), sitting in the back passenger-side seat, with the window rolled all the way down. His arms were both inside, but I could see that he was holding a MACHINE GUN at the ready, with the butt of it resting on his front chest.

It wasn’t an M-16 sized machine gun, it was something smaller. And slicker. I’ve just spent 20 minutes digging around and can’t find a good photo of the image in my head. The closest thing I could find was the machine gun that shows up in this Die Hard clip. It was one of those all black, thin, super slick-looking guys.

I really, really wanted to take a photo of him. But I was also pretty afraid that if I moved too quickly, he might interpret it as some kind of threat. And one of the last things I want to do is to get the guy with the machine gun all antsy.

For a good five minutes after the cars pulled away, I couldn’t stop thinking about that machine gun. It’s all Mike or I could talk about, as we made our way back up to the office, and went back to our desks.